


Coming Out and Coming Together

by hallelujah99



Category: Andi Mack (TV)
Genre: Coming Out, F/M, Trans Male Character, Transitioning, trans!marty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 00:53:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20183542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hallelujah99/pseuds/hallelujah99
Summary: Marty wants to make things official with Buffy, but first, he needs to come out to her. That's easier said than done when no one in Shadyside knows he's trans, apart from his parents and TJ Kippen.





	Coming Out and Coming Together

The day Marty came out to Buffy, he woke up in a cold sweat, from a nightmare. All he could remember was walking into the first day of high school, and being greeted by his old name. If this doesn’t sound like enough to qualify as a nightmare, well then you don’t know Marty. 

He knew that some trans people don’t figure it out until they’re older, he knew that some trans people feel they fall somewhere between (or entirely separate from) male and female. Not Marty, though. His mother once told him he started refusing to wear dresses before he could even say the word “dress.” The dolls he had been given for Christmases and birthdays stayed untouched, while Marty obsessed over the few toy cars he owned. (He did eventually use those dolls, though, when he and his friends made a giant catapult, they made wonderful ammo). Marty’s parents called him a tomboy, which he liked, until he learned the definition of that word, then he started to refuse it. “I’m not a tomboy, I’m a boy-boy!” he’d assert. His parents slowly but surely allowed him to begin buying clothes in the boys’ section, and when he stole a pair of scissors and cut all his hair off, they didn’t punish him too harshly. But still, they insisted to him that he wasn’t a boy, that they loved him no matter what, but he was unchangeably female. His older cousin told him he’d asked multiple times when he’d grow a penis, and never seemed to accept that it wouldn’t happen. 

Marty was in fourth grade when his dad slipped up and mentioned something his parents had agreed to not talk about. “Well bud, maybe one day when you’re older you can become a boy, but not for a long time.” That was the first time he’d heard something other than “Never happening” and he did not let it go. He attempted to fish more information out of his dad, but got nothing. But a few days later, at the computer at school, an idea occurred to him. 

“how to become a boy” he googled. Every page he attempted to click on was blocked by the schools child safety measures, but he saw the word “transgender” in many of the headlines, so he googled that, and then the whole internet page got blocked and at the same time, Marty’s teacher approached and saw what he’d typed. 

It was a very long and uncomfortable family meeting with the principal. But on the way home, Marty’s mom called his doctor to ask for referrals for a child psychologist. The next year was filled with more meetings, with multiple psychologists, psychiatrists and an endocrinologist. Then, just before the end of fifth grade, he received the very best news of his life: his family was moving. And when he started middle school, he’d be known as Marty-a boy. 

After that, it had all more or less gone according to plan. He started hormone blockers in time to prevent nearly all the unwanted changes to his body, and he was able to bulk up enough to fit in and pass before he could start taking testosterone when he turned 16. He was totally and completely stealth-his family members were the only people in Shadyside who knew he was trans. It was all going according to plan, until he kissed Buffy.

He wasn’t sure what it was about her that made coming out to her feel so important but so difficult. He hadn’t come out to Rachel- he had felt there was no need for her to know his personal business. But he didn’t want to start a relationship with Buffy if he wasn’t being totally open with her about everything. He wanted to know every little thing about her, and he wanted her to know everything about him. It was more difficult with her than with TJ, though. For one thing, TJ had come out to him, which both established openness and vulnerability, and provided the threat of collateral if he decided to be a total dick and out him (which he wasn’t. They were actually really good friends now). He also didn’t have much to lose with TJ, they weren’t friends before that night. Losing Buffy again sounded unbearable. 

Still, everything aside, he knew he had to do it. He had to tell her, because he didn’t want to be her boyfriend if she didn’t know everything about him first, but it had been two weeks since they kissed and he feared she may be growing impatient. 

He’d considered asking for TJ’s help in some way. He thought about asking TJ to ask Cyrus if Buffy had ever said anything one way or another about trans people. He’d considered asking him to ask TJ to work it into a conversation with Buffy. He’d asked reddit for advice, but got only two responses, one telling him that asking TJ to test Buffy’s feelings about the matter was a good idea and a safe bet, and other telling him to “be a big boy and do it himself.” In the end, he was too nervous to ask TJ anyway. 

He looks in the mirror and makes sure his hair is cooperating and that his outfit looks good. They’re just planning a run around town and then some ice cream in the park, nothing out of the usual for them, but he knows that for better or worse, it would be anything but a usual day.

When he runs up to meet her at their agreed upon spot, she has her signature smirk on her face. God, he has it bad for this girl. “Slowing down, grandpa? Do you wanna find a nice bench to sit on and feed the birds while a I run?” She teases him. The way he smiles at her, he doesn’t understand how she could have ever not known he liked her. 

The run goes well, they don’t talk much during, besides the usual flirtatious teasing, here and there. Once they reach the ice cream cart, Marty can feel his anxiety creeping throughout his body. Usually a run really helps to settle his nerves, but nothing could calm him down right now. 

“My treat.” Buffy smiles as she hands cash to the woman running the cart. Marty obliges, knowing it isn’t worth it to try to argue with her. 

They find a table and sit and eat their ice cream in silence for a moment before Buffy chimes in “Did you see that Shadyside Shoe Shoppe is having a huge sale on basketball shoes in two weeks? We’ve got to go, we both need new ones.” “Yeah.” Marty replies. He tries not to sound as terrified as he feels. 

He sees Buffy out the corner of his eye, she makes a confused face before trying again. “Did your cousin’s girlfriend have the baby yet?” “Yeah, she did.” He forces himself to look at her and smile but it feels forced and he’s pretty sure she can tell. “Is it a boy or a girl?” She asks, and he can tell that she’s really trying but seconds away from asking him what the hell is up. And he so desperately wants to keep putting this off, but there’s no way he can answer that question with a straight face right now.

“I have to tell you something.” He says, slurring his words with anxiety. Buffy nods, setting her spoon in her ice cream and pushing it away from herself. “Yeah, I was getting the feeling you did. What is it?”  
Damn it, why didn’t Marty prepare for this?! He’d obsessed about this for weeks, but never really settled on a script. Should he just say it, plain and simple? ‘I am transgender.’ It seemed too difficult. Should he play off of what she just said? ‘Know how you just asked me about if a newborn is a boy or a girl? Yeah, when I was born they got it mixed up’ No, that was more confusing than anything. He sat there, debating and unsure for so long that Buffy finally spoke up. 

“Look, if you don’t wanna be with me, you can just tell me. I can handle it, I’ve kind of already gotten the message at this point.”

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. 

“No, no, no, that’s not it at all, Buffy, god, I wanna be with you so badly.” 

“Then what is it?!” She asks, quite flustered at this point.

Marty buries his head in his hands, of course he’s gone and made the situation bad before he’s even come out to her. 

“I gotta tell you something, and I’m afraid if you know, you won’t want to be my girlfriend, but I also want to tell you before things are official.” 

“Please, just tell me.”

Keeping his head in his hands, he says, “Can you just…look, I know you can’t promise not to be mad, or to still like me or whatever, but can you please promise you won’t tell anyone?”

“Yes, I promise.”

“I, okay, so, hmmm, basically…” Marty gets into his head for a moment, before a thought comes to him. ‘Be a man.’ He knows that men do not have a monopoly on being courageous and direct, Buffy herself is proof of that, but in this moment, it was what worked. ‘Be a man.’ He says to himself, before lifting his head up, looking in her general direction (eye contact would have been too much) and saying quite plainly. “I’m trans. I started transitioning between elementary and middle school. If you don’t want to be with me, I’ll accept that, but just know that in my head and my heart, I’ve only ever been a boy.” 

Buffy takes a second to digest this new information, and Marty cannot for the life of him read the expression on her face. He doesn’t have to though, because soon enough, she says. “That doesn’t change how I feel. Thank you for telling me, I know it wasn’t easy.” 

She reaches out and takes his hand in hers, and god, it feels amazing and right. “I like you the same as before. If anything, I like you more now that you told me something so personal.” 

Marty can feel himself blush and his heart soars as he grabs Buffy and pulls her into a hug. “I like you more now, too.” He whispers.

After they pull away, Buffy resumes eating her ice cream, and it’s almost crazy to Marty how everything had just calmed down so remarkably fast.

“I know you probably have questions, and I’ll answer almost anything, okay?” He tells her, and she shrugs. “Obviously I’m curious about…well I always just want to know more about your life and everything, but I’m good leaving it up to you to decide what you want to tell me and when.” Marty can’t believe how lucky he is to have found Buffy. 

That evening, as he says goodbye to her, and they share their first kiss as boyfriend and girlfriend, he can feel it in his heart and all over his body-he loves her, and the wait was so worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this because user Parkerluck asked for it based on my fic Guessing Game! 
> 
> Please leave kudos or comments! <3 thank you!


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